


The Tally System

by betheflame



Series: Stony Bingo 2019 [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Getting Together, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, M/M, Natasha the matchmaker, Stony Bingo, Tony and Steve are idiots, but adorable ones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 06:28:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20286910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame
Summary: Everyone on the team knew about the tally system.Whenever Steve would save Tony - whether from a monster or from his own stupidity - he’d say, “tag”. Whenever Tony do the same, he’d say, “your turn”. Thor thought it was adorable, Clint thought it was ridiculous, Bruce refused to register an opinion.Natasha thought it was something she could work with.





	The Tally System

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for my Stony Bingo Card N4, which the wonderful folks on the Stuckony discord informed me was a scene from AA. So, this goes to them - particularly softbuckyboy, and Doph. Atto's Wife for all the AA translation help and prompts. Huge shout out to Bill for cheerreading.

Everyone on the team knew about the tally system. 

Whenever Steve would save Tony - whether from a monster or from his own stupidity - he’d say, “tag”. Whenever Tony do the same, he’d say, “your turn”. Thor thought it was adorable, Clint thought it was ridiculous, Bruce refused to register an opinion. 

Natasha thought it was something she could work with. 

They’d been avenging as a full-time gig for a few years and the enemies had ranged from sentient toasters on the Lower East Side to alien invasions so intense that refugees had been involved. They’d gathered a few other colleagues - Rhodey and Pepper both had suits now, and it was always helpful when Carol swanned in from wherever she was. Tony could do without Quill, but Rocket was handy. 

There were a few consistencies though, one might even call them traditions. Shawarma was always the post-battle meal, Nat’s hair color would change every 3.5 months, and Steve and Tony would keep the tally going. 

They called it competition. 

Nat called it flirting. 

And it was getting on her last _fucking_ nerve. 

For this particular shawarma fest, Carol and Pepper had joined them. This meant that Tony was in singularly grandiose form, flirting with each of them, even as they only had eyes for each other. 

“You know there’s no play there, Shellhead,” Nat muttered quietly as she took a seat next to him. 

“You insult me, Sixth Sense,” he winked at her. 

“You do have a play elsewhere, though,” she replied, keeping her voice calm. 

“Is this when we ride off happily ever after into the sunset? Hop on, babe, I’ve just been waiting.”

“You are insufferable and I don’t know why I put up with you,” Nat replied, with a swift smack to the back of his head. He rubbed it in fake outrage and tilted his half smile in her direction. 

“Ol Spangles isn’t the play either, Nat,” Tony replied. “I know what you’re doing and stop.”

“All I’m doing is saying that he’s currently winning the tally. So step up your game, Iron Man.”

She smirked internally at the shocked expression on his face. She patted his knee and left him to his calculations, unsure of what hell she had just unleashed onto the rest of them.

_________________

“173 to 165,” Tony said the next day at breakfast. He directed the statement to Natasha, but Bruce and Clint were at the table, too. “Me.”

Nat shook her head. “Unless you’re doing things off coms, it’s 215 to 173, him.”

“WHAT?” Tony was incredulous. “No way.”

“The tally?” Clint clarified. “Nat’s right, Bruce has a spreadsheet.’

Tony looked bumfuzzled. “Jarvis?!”

“Apologies, Sir,” Jarvis replied. “Agent Romanov, can I ask you to review your parameters?”

“With pleasure, Jarvis,” Nat replied as she made eye contact with Tony, who was grateful Steve was on his morning run. “Workshop meals, shopping trips, and the Stark Gala last year.”

Tony opened his mouth to protest, but Jarvis cut him off. “By those parameters, it is actually 425 to 165. May I suggest we add additional parameters for Sir?”

“I AM RIGHT HERE.”

“By all means, J,” Nat replied, smirking at Tony. 

“I will add suit upgrades, accommodation provisions, the Stark Gala from two years ago, and fifteen activities which have been marked as classified, but which I am confident in including in this computation. This brings the total to 425 to 390.”

“Still losing, buddy,” Nat said to Tony as she reached for another piece of fruit. “Better step up your game.”

Tony glared at her, then at Clint, and finally at Bruce. “You were no help!”

Bruce shrugged. “Was I supposed to be? Science says you’re losing. I can’t help there, Tony.”

“Argh!” Tony threw his hands up in frustration and pushed back from the table. “Fine, fine, fine. I have work to do.”

When he was gone, Bruce looked at Nat. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Her only response was a smirk.

________________

Steve was confused.

Not that confusion was a foreign concept to him in this century, but things had been _particularly_ confusing since their last battle. 

Correction: _Tony_ had been particularly confusing. 

First there was the new easel, then the set of art history books that had been on Steve’s Amazon list but he hadn’t ordered yet. Those were followed by a new handle for his shield that meant he could control the frisbee-ness of it just a little bit better, and then there was the new boots that had some sort of spring feature that let him jump higher than he was able to just from the serum. 

All in the span of three weeks. 

And - this was the weirdest part - Tony wasn’t really reacting. Usually when upgrades were made, they were all dragged down to the lab for tests and data collection and _yes, that, one more time, DUM-E did you catch that?_ But now? Steve wasn’t sure what to do. 

His only clue was that when Tony had called him to collect the new boots, the engineer had replied, “Jarvis?” and Jarvis had replied with “400, sir” and Tony had smiled at Steve with that smile that made his knees weak. 

The one Steve convinced himself was _only_ for him, even though that was a pipe dream. Steve knew his feelings for Tony weren’t returned. He may be the man out of time, but he wasn’t the man out of his own brain. 

Then, a giant purple-toned water monster with multiple legs, and a few heads had shown up in the Hoover Dam and they were all on a QuinJet. The battle was obnoxious, especially once they discovered that the thing could fling goo of some sort and they’d all been grateful for Sam’s air support and the fact that Tony had brought the new kid along. 

About an hour in, Steve noticed that Tony’s weirdness had extended to battle. He was putting himself in more danger than normal, doing more to make Steve’s heart stop, and each time it was ostensibly to protect Steve. 

Finally, he’d had it and took to the public comms channel. “IRON MAN. CHANNEL SIX. NOW.”

A few seconds later, he heard Tony’s voice crackle through. “Yeah, Spangles? Little busy here.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Currently? Fighting something that looks like the purple monster from the old McDonald’s commercials, but with goo. It’s super fun. Yourself? Taking in a show?”

“Tony,” Steve growled. “You’re being extra stupid and I don’t need that today. Focus on keeping the kid safe, please.”

“The kid’s fine, Sam and Pepper have him,” Tony replied. “And I’m not being extra stupid, I’m being my normal level of stupid. You’re the one flinging yourself around just because I gave you moon shoes. Fuck.”

“What was that?” 

“Um, he grew another leg back here. Jarvis, get NPS on the line, we’re going to need them to evacuate the southern park as well.”

“I’m going over there,” Steve cut in.

“No, you’re not,” Tony replied, with an edge to his voice. “There’s a lot of water over there that could easily form a fucking vortex and I don’t want anyone without repulsers anywhere near it.”

“You are not in command, Iron Man,” Steve bit out. 

“Christ the night, we are not doing this right now,” Tony replied and Steve heard the pop that meant Tony had closed the channel. 

Steve had loved three people in his life and _all_ of them had been absolute nightmares on his nervous system.

_______________

“I had it under control,” Tony snapped at Steve, many hours later when they were all back in the tower. It had taken six hours in total and all of their team to wrangle the monster back through the portal it had come through. It had taken Tony and Bruce the first three of those hours to figure out there was a portal. Not anyone’s favorite battle, but there were no civilian casualties and between Tony’s soldering power and Peter’s webs, the dam remained in tact.

So really, it was a successful day. 

Not that anyone would be able to tell from the way Tony and Steve had sniped at each other on the jet back to New York. 

_“You were unnecessarily reckless, constantly!” Steve growled at Tony. _

_“Okay, enough,” Bruce interrupted somewhere over Nebraska. “I can handle you guys bickering but the Big Guy is grumpy you didn’t let him smash the dam, so could we not rile him?”_

_“Sorry, Brucie Bear,” Tony replied. “Cap and I can finish this back at the Tower.”_

“But you didn’t,” Steve insisted. “Whenever you stopped whatever you were doing to come help me, which wasn’t in any approved battle strategy scenario we’ve rehearsed, you left us vulnerable to attack.”

“I had it under control,” Tony emphasized. “I never left anyone but myself open to anything, and that was a risk I was willing to take.” Tony finished toweling off his hair and threw the towel into the laundry bin. He was always careful to dress in the locked area - because Scientific Perfection over there didn’t need to see the map of scar tissue holding him together. The hair, however, always required a bit of extra time to dry.

The pair were the last two through the decontamination showers, which had started being standard operating procedure two years previous when the hot water had run out and Steve had been forced to take an ice bath. From that point on, Tony was always on hand to make sure the water was warm - either through redirecting pipes or warming the tank with the repulser. It would have been easier, of course, if Steve just showered first, but the two of them didn’t have martyr complexes for nothing. 

“But it’s not a risk I’m willing to take and I’m the one who makes those calls, Anthony Edward!” Steve hollered and then wanted to swallow his tongue. He never called Tony by his full name out loud. At least, he didn't do it in front of Tony.

Tony froze. “Well, Steven Grant, since we’re doing that now, I get to make them, too. My body, my suit, my choices. So, calm down.”

"Do not TELL me to calm down," Steve's voice lost the tenuous hold on calm it had. "I need to understand why you kept putting yourself intentionally in danger today."

“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, YOU UNBELIEVABLE MORON,” Tony exploded. 

“WELL I LOVE YOU, YOU RIDICULOUS ASSHAT,” Steve yelled back. 

“YOU WHAT?” they both yelled at each other after a few seconds. 

“What do you think all this,” Tony gestured between himself and Steve, “all the updates and gifts and whatnot was? I was being very clear.”

“You were being not clear at all,” Steve laughed. “I was being clear and you were being obtuse.”

“That word of the day calendar is really working out for you,” Tony smirked and an awkward silence descended on them. 

“So, we’re both idiots,” Steve chuckled a little. 

“Oh, I’d say we’re big ones,” Tony laughed, fidgeting with his hands. “Well-”

“Can I kiss you?” Steve whispered, as he took a step towards Tony. “Please?”

“Please and thank you,” Tony whispered back as they reached for each other.

_____________

“Slate’s clean,” Tony informed the team the next day at breakfast. Steve was, per usual, out for his morning run, but they’d decided Tony would make the announcement.

“What?” Clint asked around his mouthful of bagel. 

“The tally. It’s clear. Even. Kaput. Done.”

Nat quirked an eyebrow. “So, he was in play after all?”

“You know, I hate you, Pavlova, I really do,” Tony responded with a twinkle in his eye. 

“What is happening?” Clint repeated, as Steve came into the room and grabbed Tony’s face for a kiss. 

“Morning everyone,” Steve announced. “Did you tell them, babe?”

“I did, indeed,” Tony winked at Nat. “But Nat’s the only one who paid attention.”

“Typical,” Steve replied. 

“I paid attention,” Bruce said from behind his newspaper. “I just didn’t really, whatever. Anyway, congratulations, please use protection.”

“Yes, Doctor Banner,” Tony sing-songed. 

“So-” Clint wagged his finger between Steve and Tony. 

“Yeah, Legolas,” Tony confirmed, gathering his coffee cup. “I’m in the lab, working on moon shoes for everyone. Interrupt me at your peril.”

Cries of _uh huh_ and _sure, Tony, whatever_ rang out from around the table. 

“What was the final score,” Nat asked Steve, her voice low. 

“Well, we expanded the parameters last night, so the calculations changed.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Orgasms count for 25 points,” Steve smirked. 

“You are a horny little shit, aren’t you, Steve Rogers,” Nat hissed. 

“Oh, at least since 1935,” Steve winked at her. 

“Never been prouder, Cap,” Nat grinned. “Never been prouder.”

**Author's Note:**

> First comment gets to choose my next bingo square fill, should you so choose. 
> 
> Check out [Twitter](http:/www.twitter.com/betheflame) or [Tumblr](http://betheflame.tumblr.com) for more of my nonsense.


End file.
